5 Reasons why you should know Goldy more

Not many people know Goldy, known in Japan as one of the best cosplay craftsmen and cosplayer around.  But then again, not many people are really into mecha, armor and hands-on crafting in general. 

But to tell you the truth, if you don't know Goldy, you're missing a lot about knowing one of the legends of cosplay.

In a nutshell, Goldy has been inspiring a small community of cosplay/mecha enthusiasts into building their own seemingly impossible mecha or armor costumes, and back then around early 2000's.  If you've been around that time and you see pictures of this awesome "Gundam Guy" floating around forum sites, and even 4CHAN (admit it, some of you have been there often), he would be THAT "Gundam Guy".  Some cosplayers look up to him as inspiration that they themselves created works equal to his. One of them notably is Clive Lee of Singapore (yes, the other "Gundam Guy").  Honestly back then I tend to mistake them both as the same guy, before I got the chance to meet Clive online and in person.  So if this bit of info doesn't convince you, perhaps these 5 other reasons will:

1) He's been cosplaying mecha for about 10 years.  And its not just 10 years, with certain year or two in haitus, but 10 years of continued mecha and armor making.  That makes him a guru on anything mecha costume related (Why guru? More on that later).

Screenshot from Cosplaygen's article: http://www.cosplaygen.com/goldy-marg-a-wizard-of-cosplay-crafting/

2) In those years, he made 11 very well made mechas and armor.  Not including the numerous quality props he made for himself and other people.

From his Cosplay.com account: http://www.cosplay.com/member/146645/costumes/

3) He teaches other people how to build them.  He conducts workshops in Akihabara, with plenty of satisfied attendees. Plus he uploads them at his Youtube account.  Of course there is always the problem of the language barrier but fortunately there are videos that had interpreters or english-speaking assistants to help him out.  Check out his website Gadget Tool for more info regarding workshops.

 

No, that guy is not Goldy but one of his assistants/students helping him out in

demonstrating one of his techniques in making a body part mold.  This clip is

amusing because it does show Goldy in action, but his face is off-camera. XD

4) He's been featured in several well known websites and publication, like Cosplaygen, Anibee.TV, London's Costumerism,  Cosplay in America's Tumblr, website and book, and All-Nippon Airlines (ANA) Cool Japan website.  And I'm sure you've seen his cosplays in 4Chan as well.

https://www.ana-cooljapan.com/cosplay/#/

5) He's been around a lot.  His work had made him a representative for Japan's World Cosplay Summit in 2006, in which he won a special award for his craftsmanship.  He also became an invited guest, judge or speaker for numerous events not just in Japan, but in Korea's World Cosplay Festival 2008, Thailand's Animation & Multimedia (TAM2007), Singapore's Cosplay Challenge 2009 and Asia Cosplay Meet 2012, London's MCM Comic Con and as far as USA's Anime Expo.

Now he is now visiting the Philippines for the first time as a guest at the premier cosplay-centric event, Cosplay Mania.  Even other famous cosplayers like Reika is excited to see him that she even announced his visit at her own Facebook Page.

I'm pretty excited myself.  If these reasons aren't enough to make you want to meet him, I don't know what will.

For more information regarding his visit, head on to http://www.cosplaymania.com/.

You may follow them for updates at
FB: /CosplayMania
Twitter: @CosplayManiaPH
Google+ http://gplus.to/CosplayMania

Cosplay Mania 2013 will be selling tickets as early as next week May 15 and will continue selling them until the event itself on October 5 and 6.  Tickets will also be sold onsite as well, but I would suggest buying early to avoid the long lines.

I would like to credit my friends Wilson Tortosa and Ruben De Vela for the wonderful artwork you see here.  They're also responsible for the artwork for this year's Cosplay Tournament of Champions  (TORCH).

So I hope you guys are pretty excited for this event. :)

So it finally came to this

It seemed inevitable, considering the large number of people joining up and the hobby that has become widely popular. 

Some say it was the recent SM Megamall Martilyo Gang jewel heist that provoked it.  Some twitters even proposed having an Anti-Cosplay Bill due to the incident (as news reported that the robbers wore costumes, but later on retracted as CCTV cameras saw them wearing plain clothes).  Some later on claimed it was a sarcastic joke that went overboard thanks to irresponsible posting and liking of screenshots of the matter in Facebook.

Thinking about it, it really shouldn't have garner this much stigma against cosplayers but apparently the move is justified due to the robbery scare and cosplayers who like to bring realistic gun props to events.  As much as I like cosplaying, some people simply has this need to be kick-ass, so they bring realistic guns to an event saying its for cosplay, disregarding the orange tip rule and the common sense of not playing around carelessly and pointing the gun props at anyone.  Its election year and I've already talked about how to go about it during the gun ban during the election year of 2009.  Guess people forget.

But personally, I feel that Robinsons admin was simply looking for a way to justify enforcing cosplayers because of an incident that happened just last December, in an event which had cosplay activities.  A fight occurred between two cosplayers (or costume makers?) that ended up rather badly.  But the bad part was it was done inside the event premises and security needed to separate them along with their friends.  Already it resulted with rumors that cosplay events will be banned from the mall.  With PCC (Philippine Cosplay Convention) being the next in line, the organizers Cosplay.ph waited for the eventual storm.

Needless to say, this has been the result of unfortunate circumstances and self-centered stupidity.  Now that the eventual "zero tolerance" atmosphere has taken effect (similar to Anime Expo in Los Angeles), I wonder if cosplayers in general would finally learn something from this.  After all, it takes just one person to bring down the whole, the minority bringing down the majority which of course, includes the public posting of mismanaged sarcasm versus the angry herd mentality phenomenon witnessed in Twitter and FB.

Oh well, this will all come to pass I guess.  Sooner or later people will realize this is just a kneejerk reaction until somebody robs a bank.  I bet someone in the internet will say the robbers looked like Superman and Batman.  Oh wait, they already did.